Chapter 2

Sophia set down her knife and fork and stood. She couldn’t listen to another second of this fake sweetness.

Seeing her about to leave, Liam stood at once and signed, asking what was wrong.

Sophia shook her head, voice soft:

“I’m tired. I want to go rest.”

Without waiting for him, she walked straight out of the room.

On the street, Sophia lifted her eyes—and saw the massive LED screen across the boulevard, looping his proposal video.

“SOPHIA, MARRY ME!” The words blazed across the center.

A couple of passersby stopped, looked up, and gasped.

“God, I heard Don Costa’s fiancée can’t hear, so he rented the biggest screen in the city just so she could see ‘Marry me.’”

“And after she said yes, they’re playing it for a whole month—so the entire city can witness it… Don Costa loves her way too much.”

Sophia, the woman in the video, only tugged the corner of her mouth in a cold little laugh.

A week ago, she would’ve sounded exactly like them—believing him completely, thinking he’d be faithful.

She’d been the quiet shadow in an orphanage. A high fever at nine stole her hearing—and opened the door to endless cruelty.

After enough hate, she built walls so high even she couldn’t see over them.

Liam was the one who showed up anyway. Fell for her at first sight. Came after her like a storm.

But she’d been “played” too many times to believe it. She avoided him.

Ninety-nine times he tried. Ninety-nine times she said no.

Until that sudden street shootout—glass exploding everywhere—when he threw himself over her without hesitation, his shoulder blade pierced through.

When he woke up in the hospital, too weak to speak, the first thing he did was sign to her: You’re safe. That’s all that matters.

Later she found out—this arrogant mafia heir had learned sign language in secret for three months, just to “talk” to her.

That scar became the first crack in her walls.

Later, the wound healed into a permanent circular mark. Every time she saw it, her heart would kick hard.

Five years together, he never changed. He was good to her in ways so consistent it felt real.

He took pressure from the family and built her a world that looked unbreakable.

So that she could hear his vows on their wedding day, she took a risk and went to Switzerland for a hearing reconstruction surgery—no guarantee, no promises.

The surgery worked. She came back to Rome carrying the surprise like a secret flame, imagining his face when he found out.

And the first “sound” she heard—

was him in his study, using a voice she’d never heard before—slick, intimate—flirting with his assistant, Emily.

For a full year.

And she—she was the idiot in the dark the whole time.

The pain in her chest folded her to the ground. She hugged herself tight, like it could stop her heart from breaking.

That light, casual “Keep her,” from the private room kept grinding into her ribs.

Even with a wedding coming, he had no intention of ending it.

He really thought she couldn’t hear, so he could hide it forever, didn’t he?

The wind was sharp, but her mind had never been clearer.

She would prove it to him: lies don’t stay buried forever.

And she—

she would never accept betrayal.